CZESLAW MILOSZ
173
what had just happened in Parisian intellectual salons . France
exported in succession its philosophers, its revolution, war under
Napoleon, then its novel, and finally a revolution in poetry and
painting: symbolism, cubism, fauvism, surrealism. Now all this
seems to be a period closed or approaching its close, for, just as Latin
disappeared from the churches and schools, fewer and fewer of
Europe's young people consider it worthwhile, even for the sake of
snobbery, to learn French. Yet the modern poetry of many European
countries can be understood only if we keep in mind a fusion of two
metals-one of native origin, the other imported from Paris.
The literary map of Europe, as it presented itself to the West,
contained until recently numerous blank spots . England, France,
Germany, and Italy had definite places, but the Iberian peninsula
was no more than a vague outline; Holland, Belgium, and
Scandinavia were blurred; while to the east of Germany the white
space could have easily borne the inscription
Ubi leones
(Where the
lions are), and that domain of wild beasts included such cities as
Prague (mentioned sometimes because of Kafka), Warsaw,
Budapest, and Belgrade. Only farther to the east does Moscow
appear on the map . The images preserved by a cultural elite
undoubtedly also have political significance as they influence the
decisions of the groups that govern, and it is no wonder that the
statesmen who signed the Yalta agreement so easily wrote off a
hundred million Europeans from these blank areas in the loss
column. Perhaps it was then that a definite break occurred on the
West-East axis, and Parisian intellectuals, used to having their ideas
and books admired for their universality beyond the Vistula, the
Dnieper, and the Danube, woke up to find themselves sentenced to
provincialism. They started to search for some compensation on the
other side of the Atlantic, where, however, their involuted style and
thought did not find many followers, even at the universities.
In my youth, apprentices in poetry, if they came from the blank
spots on the map, had to undergo a short or a longer period of
training in Paris . That was the case with me, strengthened by some
family precedent, for a relative of mine, a distant cousin, Oscar
Milosz, brought up in France, was a French poet. Arriving in Paris
as a young man, I later had many opportunities to wonder at the
contrast between the radical changes occurring in myself and in my
geographical zone to the east of Germany, on the one hand, and the
perfect stability and the continuity in the life of
la ville lumiere
on the
